Scholomance

This article is about the school. For the magic-users, see Solomonari.

The Scholomance (Romanian: Şolomanţă, Solomonărie) was a fabled school of black magic in Transylvania, which was run by the Devil. There school enrolled about ten students to become the Solomonari. Courses taught included the speech of animals and magic spells. One of the graduates was chosen by the Devil to be the Weathermaker and tasked with riding the dragon to control the weather.

The school lay underground, and the students remained unexposed to sunlight for the seven year duration of their study. The dragon (zmeu or balaur) was kept submerged in a mountaintop lake, south of Hermannstadt (now Sibiu in Romanian) according to some accounts.

Contents

An early source on the Scholomance was Emily Gerard's article "Transylvanian Superstitions" (1885), written by a Scottish expatriate,[1] which was an important source for novel Dracula.[2] Twenty years earlier, a description of the Scholomance and its pupils (the Scholomonariu) was given in an article written by Wilhelm Schmidt (1817–1901), a German schoolteacher at the Romanian town of Hermannstadt.[3] discussed the Scholomance.[4]

The school, it was believed, recruited a handful of pupils from the local population.[5] Enrollment could be 7, 10, or 13 pupils.[6] Here they learned the language of all living things,[7][8][10] the secrets of nature, and magic.[8] Some sources add specifically they are instructed on how to cast magic spells, ride flying dragons, and halt or induce the rain.[6]

The duration of their study was 7 years[8][6] or 9 years,[2] and the final assingment for graduation required the copying one's entire knowledge of humanity into a "Solomonar's book".[2]

There was also the belief that Devil instructed at the Scholomance.[a]

The Scholomance, according to Gerard, was at some unspecified location deep in the mountains, but the dragon (zmeu, also spelt phonetically as ismeju[12]) was stabled underwater in a small mountaintop lake south of Hermannstadt in central Romania (modern Sibiu, Romania. Called Nagyszeben in Hungarian).[1] In the Dracula novel, the Scholomance is located by a fictitious Lake Hermanstadt.[12]

The Solomonărie, as it was called by the Romanians, was situated underground, according to the folklorist Simeon Florea Marian. Students there shunned sunlight for the 7 year duration of their training.[13][8][b]

By some accounts, one of the ten graduating students would be chosen by the devil to be the Weather-maker (German: wettermacher), and rides a dragon (zmeu in Romanian)[15] to run his errand,[7][9][1] and every time the dragon glanced the clouds, rainfall would come.[11] But God[dubious– discuss] made sure the dragon would not weary, because if it plummeted, it would devour a great part of the earth.[11] The solomonari's dragon was however a balaur according to a Romanian folklorist's account.[16])

Scholomance is a Germanization,[17]Solomonărie was the Romanian form according to the popular beliefs collected by Marian,[8] and an alternate Şolomanţâ is given elsewhere.[18][19]

These forms suggest a tie to King Solomon,[18] and it has been pointed out that a piece of folklore that describes the Solomonari as disciples of the weather-controlling ways of Solomon.[20] Additionally, some assimilation might have occurred with Salamanca.[22][23] Salamanca, Spain the famed city of learning, with medieval stories of a sorcery taught by the devil located in the Cueva de Salamanca (es).

Scholomance has been suspected of not being a genuine Romanian term, but rather a "misnomer", created through the corrupted Germanization of "Solomonari", the term for the students and not the school. Such a view was given by Elizabeth Miller, a scholar specializing in Dracula studies.[17]

Also, an impression had formed in English-speaking circles that these "Scholomance" was a neologism first reported in 1885 by Emily Gerard.[c][2] This is not true. Although Gerard had lasting impact as a major source for Bram Stoker in his writing of the novel Dracula,[2] the terms "Scholomance" and "Scholomonariu" had already appeared in print in the Austrian journal Österreichische Revue in 1865.[25][d]

The Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings with the Evil One. They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due.

And in chapter 23:

He dared even to attend the Scholomance, and there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay.

Stoker's reference to "Lake Hermanstadt" appears to be a misinterpretation of Gerard's passage, as there is no body of water by that name. The part of the Carpathians near Hermannstadt holds Păltiniş Lake and Bâlea Lake, which host popular resorts for people of the surrounding area.

^Schmidt considered the belief in the Devil's presence to be regional, as he laid it out as a firmly held belief in Hermannstadt, which gave separate sets of details.[11] But Marian prsents it as a belief in Transylvania in general.</ref>

^Marian depicts these students of the (Solomonari) as evil folk , a sort of strigoi (vampire).[14]

^For instance, Elizabeth Miller writes that Gerard must have been the first to publish the word Scholomance.[2] Occult writer Rosemary Guiley stated it was "possible that Gerard garbled another term she heard, as she probably did with the word Nosferatu".[24]

^Also, "Scholomonáriu", a Germanization of Solomonari is found glossed in a German book published 1781.[26]